By Kevin Coleman -- Defense Tech Cyberwarfare correspondent
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently stated that "NATO will have to devote far greater attention to cyberspace," - "There simply can be no true security without cyber security." This comes after the sheer number of cyber attacks, sophistication behind the attacks’ strategies and their technical characteristics have caught most off guard. Many point to the fact that the world’s best and brightest technology companies have been compromised –saying if they can get hit – what chance does the rest of world (average organizations) have trying to defend their systems.
NATO must adopt a three prong cyber program strategy – Offensive Capabilities, Defensive Capabilities and also focus on Cyber Intelligence. Our research and analysis indicates that Cyber Intelligence is the most critical component and the one that presents the biggest challenges. Intelligence that focuses on an adversary’s cyber activities will be hard to come by, but is critical in getting ahead of attacks and exploits. While NATO has been fairly vocal about cyber attacks all along, they seem to be less aggressive when it comes to putting their verbal assertions into action. The strategic development of cyber intelligence capabilities and counter-cyber-intelligence as well will take some time - most likely years. Without question the biggest challenge NATO faces will be the interoperability with international law enforcement as the various areas of hostile cyber activities morph and boundaries become more a blur.
